“Peter Buxtun, a PHS (United States Public Health Services) venereal-disease investigator in San Francisco, sent a letter to the director of the Division of Venereal Diseases to express his concerns about the morality of the (Tuskegee) experiment. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reaffirmed the need to continue the study until completion (until all subjects had died and had been autopsied)”. -Wikipedia

The Tuskegee Experiment involved tracking syphilis in poor Black Men by lying to them about treatment (and something called “bad blood”) and specifically not treating them or their families that were infected. It lasted for 40 years from 1932 to 1972.

It ended only after Buxtun’s approach, not to Government depts., but to the press in 1972.

Ancient history right?

April 13, 2008

“Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods (in Baltimore and East St. Louis) to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe (commercial fertilizer) and were never told about any harmful ingredients.” - Associated Press Writers JOHN HEILPRIN and KEVIN S. VINEYS

…human and industrial waste… …human and industrial waste… …human and industrial waste… “…families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients”

This was last week’s history.

It’s a story for all of the African American eye rollers and “modernists” who side with the jingoistic “nationals” when they stand appalled that anyone would even suggest that AIDS was an invention let loosed upon a people. Especially when Reverend Jeremiah Wright proposes it.

In fact it isn’t Wright’s proposal but merely his articulation of a well worn Black hypothesis. That if not watched, Whites in power will, eventually, do some horrific shit we all talk about it in Barber Shops. We all nod (and shake) our heads in kitchens at family dinners. We all see the condition as verrrrry possible due to, well, facts. We know it. Latinos know it. Asian Americans know it. Iranians know it. Vietnamese know it. American Natives know it.

The only people not clued in is the so-called White Blue collar on-the-fence Democrats and Republicans. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s that they don’t get it or just that they don’t want to get it.

But this is why we need the Reverend Wrights and younger successors. To point these things out. To keep the eyes open. How many times have we all yearned for more voices against the War. I even wrote a Blog (Where are My Xristian Homies at?) whining about the lack of anti-war and anti-genocide Preaching going on during the housing/SUV boom! Our collective failure is that Black folk have gotten far too complacent to air this nature comfortably. If we hadn’t the orientation of these thoughts and the people who keep ‘em stoked (like Jessie Jackson) we would not have been marginalized to the point of feigned aghast when the facts are brought to bear.

Because, call Wright what you want, you can’t call him liar. Indeed, his positions aren’t up for debate. What Black people are arguing over (my father and I included) is the timing. The timing.

SHUT UP ALREADY…..Damn. This is the knot in Black folk’s throats today.

The timing. Or the question of timing:

Should Reverend Wright be out there talking facts and, thus, jeopardizing Sen. Obama’s chances for the Presidency?

It is the only issue because no Black person down for Sen. Obama is gonna be put off by statements by the guy next to him. Hell, Wright’s not even saying anything THAT controversial (unless you work for Fox). It’s just that we are not being honest with ourselves. We have gotten so good at glancing over our experience here that we can devalue ourselves at a moments notice.

If we were being honest, then the real question would be:

Should Reverend Wright be out there talking facts and, thus, jeopardizing Sen. Obama’s chances for the Presidency because we know that great numbers of White voters in America are still so racist that they are in fear of a Black President?

Because that’s what this is about. Not competency. I doubt we could find anyone who ever took the SAT test less competent than George W. Bush. So it’s not about “acts”. It’s purely about RACE.

On the one hand is my father. “He needs to just shut-up. Stop stirring up all this stuff.”

I dare say that this is the prevalent pundit position.

Even still, the premise of this statement is remarkable: That those White folk intent on voting down racial lines could be fooled or lulled into voting for Senator Barack Obama by never bringing up America’s record (and for da record, Wright’s speech is in 2001).

That, except for Rev. Wright’s words, Senator Obama would’ve blown right past the tradition of White rule in America. “It’ll work as long as we don’t remind White folk about…the truth”. Seems silly but the converse is true and, in fact, has been Hillary Clinton’s entire campaign strategy these last two months.

Actually, this sentiment is what such Whites feel. That once he gets in it’s gonna all change. And if that’s what we want Senator Obama to do, doesn’t that make him as low as the man who said that “we will not nation build!” (George W. Bush)?

BLACK RULE

Although brilliant in his Philadelphia Race Speech, Senator Obama has been crunched a lil bit by Wright’s sincerity, power, loquaciousness and forthrightness. No matter how old. The “chicken’s coming home to roost” speech was prescient, biblical and absolutely correct. Moreover it’s the truth. As truthful as when Malcolm said it after Kennedy was killed. As truthful as it will be when Historians examine our time.

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But America has gotten so comfortable with the lies of George W. Bush that the truth is controversial. Although laying out just a few of our government’s transgressions to make his point, Wright was quoting a White Ambassador. However the phrase would come to a head in a technical sense when it was revealed that, in addition to telling the Bush administration what would happen, there was an actual technical term for what happens when 14 of 19 Saudi fighters are trained by fighters trained by the CIA to engage the Soviets in Afghanistan and fly planes into buildings as an attack; Blowback.

Hell, if Wright had just said that then the press wouldn’t even mention his speech because Blowback is their term.

Sidebar: I will submit that we should remain skeptical of the “press’” ability. 90% percent laid down on the job and helped to usher in this war and reported so badly that Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Example: Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times writes a story about a person close to Wright and ardent Clinton supporter maybe engineering this whole thing. That’s ridiculous enough but the main point is he starts off with;

“Everybody is talking today about how much the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's latest unrepentant militant remarks hurt his most prominent parishioner, Sen. Barack Obama, and his chances to win the Democratic presidential nomination and the general election.

At no time did Wright call for militancy, violence or the use of inhumane action. In fact the sermon was AGAINST rash violence and revenge. See, racism can come with degrees!

Still, the press would rather you focus on the fear of Wright’s words rather than on Senator Obama’s policies.

BLACK RULE II

Right after watching Rev. Wright I sat down and watched Birth of a Nation. It’s a terribly disgusting film about the rancid mythology of “Black Rule” during Reconstruction.

(note: the black man is still a White man in Blackface)

And it’s on many 100 best movies of all time lists!!!

But dig this…

“The White Men were roused by the mere instinct of self preservation …until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the southern country…” -Woodrow Wilson

Yep, President Woodrow Wilson. A filthy sonofabitch. I can call him that because the Ku Klux Klan is a tool of foul intimidation, dehumanization and murder. It has always been a terrorist organization and is part of the tradition that Wright spoke of.

This Woodrow Wilson is never taught in school. World War I Woodrow Wilson is taught. League of Nation’s Woodrow Wilson is taught. Even stroked out wife ruling Woodrow Wilson is taught. But never the filthy racist who, as President of Princeton University, turned Blacks away from even applying. Never the Woodrow Wilson who said, “segregation is a gift…”

Now I would be vilified for having a “narrow” opinion of a “complete” man who was President in a “different time”. Especially since the Race issue was different. But it wasn’t. Isn’t.

Blacks have never had a race issue. We’ve never run any industry that, wholesale, kept Whites out. We’ve never burned down a city just BECAUSE Whites lived there. We’ve never bombed a city from the sky because White folk did business there. We have never gone on a White lynching spree. Nor have we ever enacted laws to displace White people.

It is one of the basic insults to Black folk that when we properly describe dehumanizing affects of leaders, we are being radically narrow minded.

But it is Whites’ fear of our revenge that precludes many from supporting Senator Obama. Has to be

Funny thing is that Senator Obama talked about this very thing back in Pennsylvania. About stoking fear with the threat of removal of traditions. This time, it ain’t guns, jobs or religion…but White Rule.

HOMEWORK

There’s the task. Can Whites get over their fear of Black Rule mythology to vote on the issues and the truth? That is all Wright is being used for. As a wedge for the issues. Interestingly enough, Senator Clinton could’ve dispelled this whole thing by showing her willingness to stand against the Black Rule fears….except that she was too busy engaged in a kind of bootleg version of it herself.

How? By history. The great lie about America is the freedom lie. America has always had a population who has been tread upon as less than. Today Bush and Co. have extended that to almost all of us (how democratic!) moreover America has Apartheid roots. But to promote that we are exactly NOT that, America throws up examples of Great Americans. Dr. King, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X. But they were all hated and vilified in their day. Until, of course their words proved right and the spirit by which they delivered such words fit American “freedom” propaganda. And of course they either died or became speechless.

Thus the challenge for those fenced Whites is whether or not they can finally overcome that fear or will they allow the BrownShirt Right to, once again, set their agenda and marginalize them.

Because Rev. Wright spoke so eloquently and because he wrapped it up in the Bible and because he used so many different examples, he will be proved right…and in ten years or so,

When the truth of how bad the Bush administration actually was surfaces.

When the great Bush depression is over.

When President Obama’s healing efforts prove to be a new dawn for American foreign policy.

…a computer company using the theme of “an original” will license Wright’s image and place it in an ad with the heading….”It’s good to be Wright”…